


Webs We Weave

by sparxwrites



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dysfunctional Family, Homophobia, Intrigue, M/M, Mind Games, Seduction, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Michael saw you kissing Alastair behind the bike shed yesterday."</p>
<p>(Or, the one in which Lucifer's playing a dangerous game, and no one's really sure exactly who he's trying to seduce.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Webs We Weave

"Michael saw you kissing Alastair behind the bike shed yesterday." The table in front of Castiel is covered in books and pieces of paper - the beginnings of an analysis of symbolism in _Lord of the Flies_ , notes solving infinite binomial expansions, a page of his biology textbook dedicated to luminescence in fireflies, a list of physics questions on antimatter and Feynman diagrams, a handful of lines from  _Beowulf_  he needs to have memorised for tomorrow.

He’s messy in the creation of his homework, but the end product is a thing of beauty, order from chaos. There’s probably some kind of moral in there somewhere, Gabriel’s joked before, but for the life of him Castiel can’t find one. He just finds life easier like this, everything laid out in front of him, disparate enough that he can see the connections between it all. He’s not worked out how to do that with people yet, open their minds up and lay them out on the table like a piece of homework, but he will. One day, he will.

"Just sealing a deal. You know how it goes." Lips pouted, deep breath in, glow of the cigarette, exhale through the nose and smoke curling out like a dragon, laughter in those pale blue eyes; Lucifer’s gorgeous, irresistible  and he knows it. It echoes in every motion, the grace with which he lounges against the kitchen counter, the slight sway of his hips as he shifts his weight from one foot to another, the long elegance of the fingers he holds the cigarette with. There’s no self-consciousness to anything he does, only an enviable confidence, an infallible pride.

Castiel doesn’t  _know how it goes_ , but he nods anyway and has to swallow, hard, because Lucifer is slow and lazy sin incarnate, deadly and beautiful and easy. It’s wrong, because Lucifer’s his brother (not by blood, because he, Castiel, is adopted, a stranger left behind in the wake of the grace and intelligence of his four older brothers, but that’s not enough to make it right), but that fact doesn’t make it any less true.

It’s hard to do his homework when Lucifer’s in the room.

There’s silence for a moment; smoke curling towards the ceiling and Lucifer humming low in his chest, the opening notes of some grand operatic number, and the scratch of Castiel’s pen as he scribbles out equations and formulae, comparisons and analyses and answers that, alone, mean nothing, but mean everything when pulled together, a blanket of universal truth that describes the motions of particles and metaphors.

"He says he’s going to tell Father." The capital letter is audible, a courtesy-slash-terror that even Lucifer still elects to use, for all his sexual and intoxication rebellions, drugs and alcohol and easy, debauched sex. Smoking is far from his brother’s only vice - not that the rest of the family know that, not that the rest of the family knows the second-eldest beauty has  _any_  vices (other than Michael, now, it would seem). None of them can be trusted with it.

Castiel, young and unimportant and precariously placed in their ancient web of intrigue as he is, can be trusted to keep secrets, but no one else. He collects secrets like others collect stamps or jewellery or interestingly-shaped stones, hoards them and never, ever forgets them. He has more, now, than anyone in the family could possibly know. It makes him more dangerous than any of them know, either, and the knowledge is a warm flame next to his heart when the web tightens around his chest so far he forgets to breathe. 

"Is he now?" Lucifer huffs out a small laugh, smoke-rough and mocking, pushing off from the counter with his hip. Castiel swallows again, holds his breath, keeps his eyes fixed on the swimming algebra and alliterative devices, on the diagrams and descriptions, fighting to keep his posture natural - or, as natural as it ever is with him, formal stiffness carved into his bones, stilted speech branded on his tongue. "And why are you telling me this, little spider?"

_Little spider_. of all of them, Lucifer knows the most, sees the most, sees the truth of it all through the fog of grudges and manners. He knows better than most of the others about how many secrets Castiel holds at the back of his throat, how closely he guards them - sees better than most that Castiel is the one sat in the middle of this web his family has woven, watching it all, silent and waiting.

It’s an odd nickname, but one Castiel treasures all the same.

He opens his mouth to answer and then closes it again, frozen at the touch of Lucifer’s hand in his hair, careless and proprietorial and demanding. Not asking anything for anything particular, but  _demanding_ , everything and anything and stillness. “I thought you might like to know,” he says eventually, carefully, words more stilted than even his usual formalities, placed like hot coals on his tongue. It’s difficult not to tilt his head back, lean into Lucifer’s touch, but he manages it. Stillness comes naturally to him, as does silence.

"Hmm." It’s a vibration more than a noise, one Castiel can feel rumbling in Lucifer’s chest, close as it is to the back of his head. The fingers contract once, twice, scratching lightly at his scalp. He’d say the gesture was absent-minded, but nothing Lucifer does is ever thoughtless. "I wonder what Father will have to say about  _that_.”

"He will disapprove." It’s obvious, beyond obvious, but Castiel says it anyway.  
"Of course he will." There’s something chiding in Lucifer’s tone - he doesn’t believe in words being used when they aren’t required, in wasting sounds. He takes another long inhale of smoke, holding it in his mouth for a handful of heartbeats before letting it curl between reddened lips, winding up to the ceiling. Castiel shudders beneath his hand, barely noticeably. Possibly he thinks Lucifer won’t notice it, hasn’t noticed how he looks at his big brother, how his eyes track Lucifer’s lips and fingers and the shift of his hips as he walks.

He’s wrong, of course. Lucifer notices everything.

"Do  _you_  disapprove?” he asks Castiel idly, one eyebrow raised, fingers keeping up their one-two rub across his younger brother’s head, enough nail for Castiel to feel it, not enough to leave marks.

Castiel’s silent for a moment, and then shrugs. A political answer, but not a true one, Lucifer knows. “Tell me the truth.”  
"I think Alistair is a bad choice." Clipped disapproval in every word that Castiel can’t help betrays his even voice.  
"Because he’s a boy?" Lucifer’s curious now - is this practicality, jealousy, something else? Castiel is an enigma at the best of times. Any view into his world is beyond precious, and more than intriguing.

"Because he is untrustworthy. Unreliable. Unpredictable." Finally, Castiel turns, looks up into Lucifer’s face. One hand in his lap, one hand spread across the words of William Golding, and he longs to reach out and touch. "He’s not what you need."

"And you are?" The words are out before Lucifer can help himself, in a tumble of smoke and amused laughter, eyes bright. He’d meant to drag it out a little longer, keep teasing, see if he could rile Castiel’s stone-cold self-control, but this works just as well too - the spreading rouge across pale cheekbones, a flustered brightness in sky-blue eyes, the slight clench of his fingers against fabric and paper. It’s beautiful, marvellous, more satisfying than any of the time’s he’s brought men or women to screaming orgasms with his mouth or fingers.

"I…" Castiel swallows, swallows again, doesn’t know how to respond. It’s a trap, a trick, always is with Lucifer, a conversation with him like walking a tightrope in high winds. "I am your brother," he settles with eventually. It’s a true statement, neutral, without ambiguity. It means nothing, of course, but then nothing they say to each other ever does.

"That you are." Lucifer smiles, slow and wicked, curl of dust-red lips over white teeth. There’s no innocence in the movement, no way Castiel can misconstrue it, interpret it as anything other than what it is. "You’re also my little spider. Watching and waiting." He presses the pad of his thumb firmly against Castiel’s skull, strokes across the hard bone of it with a slow, thoughtful gesture. "So patient," he whispers, leaning down to rest his chin on top of Castiel’s head. "So quiet, so careful. So  _good_  to me, giving me all these little hints about Michael and Father.”

Castiel shivers, tilts his head back, can’t help himself. His lips part in a silent moan, Lucifer’s voice like liquid sex, dark and dripping and so, so easy to listen to. “Y-yes,” he murmurs, lips shaking slightly.

He’s a complicated little spider, Lucifer’s brother, all wrapped up inside his own head - but he’s also so easy, so  _delightful_ , to play.

"You could be better for me than Alistair, could you?" purrs Lucifer, his cheek pressed to Castiel’s temple now, hands on his shoulders. "Is that what you think? Do you want to be my general, little spider? My second in command?"

Castiel has no words, no answers, other than the thick bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, eyes wide and a little glossy, gaze turned inwards and focused on Lucifer’s voice. As it should be. "Would you  _like_  that?” asks Lucifer, voice low, cheek to cheek with his younger brother, the words almost a hiss. “Tell me, Castiel. Is that what you’d like?”

"Yes," whispers Castiel finally, lips parted and loose, cheeks flushed, hair a mess at Lucifer’s hand. " _Yes._ ”

That’s all the permission Lucifer needs to tug Castiel to his feet and a few steps back from the table, to circle in front of him and wrap arms around him until they’re pressed knee to groin to chest, Lucifer’s hand resting on the small of Castiel’s back, slipping downwards, the other dug firm between his shoulder blades.

And as Lucifer leans forward, hands sliding away from each other to cradle Castiel’s ass - as he pulls Castiel even closer, brings their lips together in a slow, molten kiss, he keeps his eyes locked on Michael over their little brother’s shoulder. He’s stood in the kitchen doorway, back-lit by the light flooding in from the hall, eyes wide and blank with righteous horror, a picture-perfect figure straight from an ancient painting.

He keeps his eyes there as he curls tight fingers into Castiel’s hair, tilts his head back a bit; Castiel moulds beautifully to his shaping, soft and pliant without being a dead weight. His lips part beneath Lucifer’s with hardly any guidance, fall loose at the long, deep-pressure bites against the chapped skin there, a low moan building in his throat as Lucifer licks and sucks and claims every inch of his brother’s mouth.

Despite his horror, Michael doesn’t leave, doesn’t look away. It’s hard to tell, but Lucifer thinks he sees his older brother’s lips part in time with Castiel’s. The faint blush of Castiel’s cheeks, echoed on Michael’s, a shared sparkle of  _something_  in their eyes…

People are so delightfully  _easy_ when you know how to play them. And Lucifer? He always knows how to play them.


End file.
